weekday workout schedule for beginners.

marleneg2k5
marleneg2k5 Posts: 4
in Fitness and Exercise
hi everyone I'm looking for a workout schedule for the week for beginners. Curious to see how strength and cardio are divided throughout the week and what types of excersices you can do for a beginner.

Replies

  • amandaiams
    amandaiams Posts: 73 Member
    According to my trainer, you should workout at least 5 days a week, 6 if you can and most of those days are cardio. I've been doing strength 2 days a week (and supposed to do cardio in conjunction on those two days, plus 4 days of only cardio.) Unfortunately I've slacked off, but in the beginning I saw results pretty rapidly. Some people do strength and cardio on alternate days so I would say it depends on your goals. Are you wanting to lose weight, tone, bulk, etc? If you're wanting to just develop a good routine, I'd recommend starting 2 days strength, 3 cardio (for at least 45 minutes) and go up from there.
    You can do any exercise. I started out doing some pretty basic stuff like squats, lunges, rows, curls and the like. We also used the machines (which are great if you want to take the guesswork out of your form if you're at a gym) and we did free weights using mirrors to watch our form.
    My best piece of advice with free weights is to keep wrists straight (otherwise you strain your arm-trust me) and to use lighter weights but more reps until you feel like you can do 15 easily.

    Hope this helps! I'm by no means a professional but this is what I've learned from my trainer and so far, so good!
  • arditarose
    arditarose Posts: 15,573 Member
    ^^You don't need to go that much, or do that much cardio if you don't want. I'm not a beginner and there's no way I'm doing 5 or 6 days of cardio. 3 would be high for me.

    There will be a lot of suggests but 3 days of lifting, a couple of cardio (can be included on lifting days) will suffice.
  • AJ_G
    AJ_G Posts: 4,158 Member
    amandaiams wrote: »
    According to my trainer, you should workout at least 5 days a week, 6 if you can and most of those days are cardio.

    Not sure where your trainer got that from, but that's not required at all. Even if you can workout 3 days a week that's good. Most beginner programs for strength have you working out 3 times a week doing full body workouts. Cardio is not required for weight loss, but it can help and it's good for conditioning, but you do not need to be doing cardio 4 days a week. You can do strength and cardio on the same day if you want, many people do. What you give priority to depends on your goals. If your goal is to condition for a triathlon, marathon, or other activity that requires very good cardiovascular conditioning, then you can give priority to cardio. If your goal is mainly to get the best aesthetics possible and to look as good as possible, then you should focus on weight lifting in conjunction with the proper diet (calorie intake, protein intake, etc).

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